Following up our previous research on nurses' inferences of suffering, the current project deals with two major issues: (1) What changes occur in student nurses' inferences of patients' suffering over the course of their nursing education; (2) What is the relation between nurses' inferences of suffering and their interactions with patients? To investigate the first issue, students at all levels in six schools of nursing have been tested twice at a one year interval, thus permitting comparisons among year levels as well as evaluating changes over time. To investigate the second issue, which represents an extension of our earlier study of medical-surgical nurses, nurses in obstetric and pediatric units are being studied. Measures of their inferences of suffering and observations of nurse-patient interactions have been obtained, and the relationships among these two sets of variables are being analyzed.